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Saturday, February 26, 2011

CDF OpEd: China's Evacuation from Libya

By Mr. Unknown.

China’s ongoing evacuation of its citizens from a chaotic Libya is starting to draw close scrutiny from pundits due to the PLAN’s use of a 054A class Frigate (Xuzhou, FFG-530) amongst other civilian means of evacuation. Unsurprisingly, we can leave it to some media outlets to exaggerate this action into nothing less than old school imperialist “gunboat diplomacy.”

A not-so-subtle proclamation of China’s “menacing” display of naval power came from the Council on Foreign Relation’s (CFR) Elliot Abrams, who wrote the following on the CFR blog, (here)

“In recent days, the White House has been saying that the United States had to watch its words and actions because American citizens were at risk in Libya. So instead of acting, we are building a diplomatic coalition. China has taken a different tack: to use power. Instead of biting their tongue, the Chinese appear to be making it clear to the Qadhafi regime that no danger to Chinese workers will be tolerated.”

An even more provocative article titled “China Fills Libya Power Void” appeared on the website of Investor’s Business Daily, which compared China’s supposed “assertiveness” to “US inaction,”

“Up until now, the conventional thinking from the Tom Friedman crowd claims that China is somehow engaged in a new model of commercial engagement abroad, quite unlike the old empires of the past that projected military power. That theory is out the window now with this naval action. China will defend its own, same as any other empire.”

“China's assertiveness in the Libyan crisis stands in contrast to that of the U.S. By the time we found a vessel to ferry a mere 600 nationals out of the country, the Chinese had already transported 12,000 of its people to Crete… China is setting a precedent with its newfound show of force.”

Instead of “praising” China’s “new-found assertiveness,” perhaps the authors should have asked why the PLAN was able to sail into Libya with impunity? And why neither the rebels nor the Libyan government questioned whether China has ulterior motives other than ferrying its citizens away from the cross-fire? The correct answer is NOT China’s determined “show of force” or “power projection,” but its record of restrained and infrequent use of force, coupled with its consistent policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states. Having built up its “street-cred” in Africa as a non-intrusive business partner, China provoked no suspicions from either side of the Libyan upheaval on the rare occasion that it used military assets as part of the evacuation.

The authors of the aforementioned articles have drawn precisely the opposite conclusion that should have been reached. China’s relatively smooth evacuation vis-a-vis US awkwardness represents NOT the need for aggressive intervention, but rather the power of restraint surmounting that of forceful coercion.

6 comments:

While not being any sort of expert on China, I will admit that your conclusions with regards to "the power of restraint surmounting that of forceful coercion" tracks with what I know of both China and the US.

However, I fell compelled to point out that any comparison between China and the United States should be filtered through a reminder of what these two countries do not have in common. China's foreign policy is born of, and reinforces the idea of unilateral control of a nation without representation of the people (AKA socialism, of one sort or another). Even if I stipulate that the U.S. has engaged in "forceful coercion" (which I consider to be a drastic over-simplification of the situation), that policy can, at best, be argued to be one facet of a much broader foreign policy that is held to a much higher set of social and ethical standards than China has ever dreamed of.

Every policy has its drawbacks, and I am glad to concede that this this incident represents one such drawback for us. However to preempt a possible next step to this conversation, this drawback does not suggest to me that we change the way we do things.

The main point of this op-ed was NOT to compare US & PRC reactions to the Libyan crisis, but rather to point out how faulty such comparisons are, especially how faulty their conclusions are. It is certain media pundits, through articles such as those quoted in the op-ed, who made such comparisons and used their misinterpretations to advocate forceful coercion through a military show of force.

Nor was this a suggestion that the US has engaged in "forceful coercion" in the current Libyan crisis. In fact, I would say the Americans have been a lot less interventionist in this upheaval compared to its past actions.

The point of mentioning "forceful coercion" is to illustrate that - contrary to the pundit's version of the story - the relative ease in China's evacuation was NOT because China engaged in a show of force, but precisely because China did NOT do so, and normally does not do so.